Washington: Amidst the controversy over Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from Fox News debate four days before the Iowa meetings, Trump said, he’d move forward with his own competing event.

His “tremendous” rally at Drake University in Des Moines at the same time as his Republican rivals gather for the debate just two miles away will raise money for wounded veterans, he said.

Suggesting that television networks have made millions of dollars in advertising on debates he’s participated in, Trump said he doesn’t mind debating, but “I just don’t like being used.”

“Fox was going to make a fortune off this debate. Now they’re going to make much less,” said the billionaire real estate mogul on another show on the conservative show as the anchor vainly tried to cajole him to reconsider.

Escalating his long-running feud with Megyn Kelly, Trump lashed out at the Fox News anchor whom he has accused of treating him “unfairly” for questioning him on his past derogatory remarks about women at the first Republican debate in August.

Calling it a “conflict of interest” Trump demanded that Kelly should be not allowed to moderate Thursday night’s debate. But Fox News declined to give in. Kelly will be one of the three moderators at the debate.

“I have zero respect for Megyn Kelly,” said Trump. “I don’t think she’s good at what she does and I think she’s highly overrated. And frankly, she’s a moderator; I thought her question last time was ridiculous.”

Kelly herself weighed in that Trump skipping the debate would “probably be a bad decision” while conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh lauded him for “controlling the media.”

But despite Trump’s continued attacks against her, Kelly said he is a “breath of fresh air” in politics.

“He doesn’t care about PC culture,” Kelly said in an interview with Time magazine published on Wednesday. “It’s a breath of fresh air.”

Kelly who spoke to Time on Tuesday, just hours before Trump announced his plan to skip Thursday night’s Fox News debate, said her network can’t give in to “terrorizations toward any of our employees.”

Trump’s other Republican presidential rivals also lost no time in criticising him. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said Trump’s decision reminds him of “a 13-year-old arguing.”

Texas Senator Ted Cruz challenged Trump to debate him Saturday night in Sioux City, Iowa. But Trump laughed off Cruz’s call to debate, saying in a message on Twitter that if they did it the contest should be held in Canada, where Cruz was born.

Criticising the US President Donald Trump for his protectionists policies, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman on Saturday accused President Trump of not taking his jobs seriously. Following the protectisists measures taken by the US President, there could be “risks of disruptive trade war”, he said.

President Donald Trump is heavily criticised. Wikimedia Commons

“He does not take the job seriously. He doesn’t say to himself that I am the most important official in the world; I have better do my homework for understanding the issue. ..He just goes that these are my gut feeling and hires people who make him feel good…that is a frightening prospect,” Krugman said responding to a query on his perception on Trump. On the economic issues President Trump’s gut feelings are “protectionist” and his views of America were “50 years out of date”.

“He wants America a heavy industrial country in the way it was when he was a young man. That is not just going to happen but he attempts to make it happen, which is extremely disruptive to America and to the global as a whole,” Nobel Laureate said. Krugman said he was until recently optimistic that Trump’s protectionist policies would not see the light of the day.

“Until about two weeks ago, I was quite optimistic that it would not happen. The reason was not because the President would get good economic advice but because the US businesses are invested in a globalised economy. All the investments the businesses have made is based upon the assumptions that the open trading system would continue. There is an enormous amount of fiscal capital and a large number of jobs are dependent on these value chains,” he said at the News18 Rising India Summit here.

Krugman further said: “I had assumed the influence of these business communities would be sufficient… that it would not happen. I am less optimistic now…we have seen reasonably sensible Economic Council Head was fired, completely irrational tariff (was) imposed on steel and aluminium.”

Krugman says these actions of President can cause a trade war. Wikimedia Commons

According to him, immediate issue is going to be confrontation not with China, but with Europe as the “steel tariffs” will hit Europe. He said there are possible risks of “disruptive global trade war”.

Speaking on Chinese economy he said, “China is a financial crisis waiting to happen. China is a widely unbalanced economy…the country is sustaining itself with a credit bubble that is waiting to burst…There is a significant risk of Chinese bubble burst.”